


Along the Road to Truth

by lostlilsnail



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Probably a whole lot of nothing tbh, Some angst, This is my first time posting anything on here I am probably doing this very wrong, pls send help, some melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-17 15:23:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostlilsnail/pseuds/lostlilsnail
Summary: When her curse is under threat, Regina must decide how she wants to move forward in her life. Emma has a crisis of conscience. Poor Henry is along for the ride.





	Along the Road to Truth

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm sure this isn’t particularly original, but I wanted to jot down something small and simple because I want to try and get a hang of posting on this website before I get into longer stuff. I made my account ages ago but have been too intimidated to take the leap over from FFN so please let me know if there are any posting/labeling errors on anything I upload. There’s a bit of a learning curve haha. Thanks! :)

It’s three in the morning.

Three thirty-six if one wants to get technical, which, considering the hour, Regina most certainly does.

She stares at the phone in her grasp, scarcely able to comprehend the words she’s looking at.

_**Let me in.** _

Upright upon her mattress, Regina glances around her darkened room as though she will miraculously find someone within its shadows with the answer to this riddle. Does Emma Swan really believe she is going to get out of her bed at three in the morning to entertain a house guest on both a school and work night all because a text demands so? Is that truly what is happening?

After a brush off, and then days of silence, this is how she returns?

Regina contemplates merely turning off the device and returning to sleep. Or even sending back a simple **_No_**.

Curiosity always does have a way of getting the better of her though, and within seconds she finds herself tiptoeing down the stairs, robe wrapped tightly around her middle.  

For Emma’s sake, this had better be an actual emergency. Main Street better be on fucking fire.

If Regina is astonished by the sheriff’s audacity in calling upon her so late, then she’s sure as hell flabbergasted by the sight that greets her when she actually reaches the front door and wrenches it open. Any scathing remark that had been growing within her instantly dies on her tongue as she takes in her visitor.   

Emma stands on the porch, eyes wide and unfocused. She nods to herself as soon as the door opens and mumbles a quiet, “Good,” rocking on her heels while her head shifts about to take in her surroundings. Her hands slap against her thighs and her fingers start a little jig there, tapping an uncoordinated rhythm upon her jeans.  

“I thin-” she starts breathlessly, but Regina, regaining her senses, holds up a firm hand.

“I’m going to stop you right there. Are you intoxicated?” Her gaze roams over Emma’s form. The woman’s raw, jittery energy. The wildness of her hair. Her short, shallow breaths. The red hue around her dilated pupils. “On drugs?”   

Emma’s wide eyes dart up to meet hers and a twisted grin stretches across her face. “I wish,” she hisses, fingers still dancing. “I fucking wish.”

Regina takes a step back, hardly soothed by Emma's answer. She studies the intruder intently. Emma seems borderline unhinged, and Regina is more than aware that the sheriff is armed, a pistol clasped securely at her hip. Unplanned visits from frenemies never really go all that well for Regina in her experience, and this encounter already has the makings of a disaster.

“I haven’t been asleep in, like,” Emma takes two steps forward, actually into Regina’s home, before she pulls back the sleeve of her jacket and brings her wrist up to her face to inspect her watch.

She isn’t wearing one.

“Thirty-eight hours, maybe. Probably more.” She releases a heavy breath as she drops her arm. “Granny’s coffee is kind of shit, you know?”

Regina knows. She also knows Emma needs to be far away from her home.

“What the hell is going on with you?”

She’s compelled to step forward, force the other woman back, intimidate her all the way out of the house. But for the first time since their initial meeting, genuine fear is settling in Regina’s gut that goes beyond the potential loss of her son.

She isn’t sure what Emma is going to do. If their games have finally gone too far for the woman. If this raw, anxious, unstable energy Emma is exuding is going to end in physical violence.

A punch thrown in a graveyard is one thing. A gun at the hip is another entirely. Why bring it? She won’t use it. Nothing will happen with Henry sound asleep just feet above them. Right?

Especially not since-

Lately they’ve been-

And maybe it doesn’t really mean anything but surely it’s enough to take guns out of the equation.

Unless maybe the Savior has come to put down the Evil Queen for the Greater Good.

Regina has never been frightened before, even when they were at each other’s throats, because although Emma likes to test limits, when push comes to shove she plays by the rules of this world. Regina had sensed it from the beginning, and Emma had only proven it further during the whole debacle with the fire.

Regina never had to be scared because Emma would only ever go so far, and she herself had no such boundaries. That gave her an unwavering advantage. If they had kept at it, Regina knew for that reason alone she would have won. However long it took she would have come out the victor because there was little holding her back.

But then things had changed. Were still changing, in fact. Every day. And it’s confusing and difficult and sometimes a little scary in the best ways but-

Except maybe things have changed again. Because it feels an awful lot like Emma might be done with progress and through with playing by the rules and ready to alter her approach.

Start a new game on a more even playing field.

Visit the mayor in the middle of the night with a gun.

“Do you have any pictures of yourself as a kid?”

Regina blinks. “Excuse me?”

Emma is taking in everything on the walls around her, all the photos of a grinning Henry throughout his early childhood. At the park, in the diner, the first day of school.

“When you were a little girl,” Emma presses. “Who were your parents? Where did you grow up?”

“I don’t see how-”

“Do you have the pictures or not, Regina?” Emma’s gaze is piercing. Relentless. Daring Regina to say yes. To produce such images. To prove her life in this world. To establish a proper history.   

Shit.

She won’t cower. She won’t hide. Regina will stand straight and tall. She will fight. She will keep fighting until her last breath. Just like always.

“No,” she replies at last, strong and steady. “No, I don’t believe I do.”

To her credit, Emma doesn’t flinch at the answer. She merely nods because, well, that had been exactly what she was expecting, Regina’s sure. That was why Emma had come.

That was why she had brought her gun.   

“Yeah, this town is weird like that.” Emma keeps right on nodding, to herself more than Regina. It’s like she can’t stop. Like she has no control. “I’ve been to, I think maybe, sixteen? Sixteen houses. Nobody has said yes yet.”

Regina takes a step back. She retreats further into the hall that for the past twenty-eight years has been her sanctuary, and wraps her arms around herself.

“Mary Margaret and I went out with Ruby and Ashley a few days ago, you know? We went to a, uh, a bar, and the waitress there was really nice. Really sweet. Mary Margaret asked her to snap a picture of us. She had actually brought out her old digital camera special which is just, what? I mean, everyone’s using their phone these days, right? It was super embarrassing, but we let her do it because, you know, that kind of stuff is so important to her.”

Regina swallows. Even on her best days she really isn’t in the mood for fond musings on Snow White, alter ego or otherwise.

This isn’t her best day.

It’s very likely she’s going to die this day.

“It came out decent. She really liked it. So when she went to school a few days later, she used her printer there to make a nice paper copy.” Emma rocks back on her heels, shoves her hands into her back pockets. “You know the thick kind of paper? The good stuff? Really glossy?”

Regina wants to snap at the idiocy of the question but swallows the retort down because she does know, and Emma _knows_ , and so there’s nothing left to do but nod.  

Henry hadn’t let her kiss him goodnight. He hadn’t been letting her for the longest time. She can’t remember the last time he’d allowed her lips against his skin.

“She brought it home,” Emma continues. “Wanted to frame it. And I laughed at her, because that seemed like such a typical Mary Margaret thing to do, you know?” This time she doesn’t wait for agreement. “And it is. So why, I asked, why don’t you have more pictures? Why isn’t this apartment filled, just like, overflowing with them? Because that’s so Mary Margaret, right? That’s just so her. And you know what I found out?”

Regina’s voice is soft and weak and unrecognizable to even her own ears.  “What?”

“She doesn’t have pictures.” Emma spreads out her arms, gestures to the walls around them. “There’re some. They’re around. And they’re all the fucking same. Same age. Same haircut. Same everything. For everybody. I went all over. Ruby. Archie. Leroy. It’s all the same. ”

And there’s nothing to say. No defense to make. No final card to play. Because whatever conclusion Emma’s drawn isn’t refutable. What can Regina say? There used to be a ban on cameras? Every single family in Storybrooke detests out of date photographs?     

“I went all over trying to find anything. And then I started talking. I started asking questions. Simple things. Easy things. How long people have lived here. How people met. Where they grew up. Where they went to school.” Emma catches and holds Regina’s gaze, eyes narrow, accusing. “How long you’ve been mayor.”

She advances two steps, stills, hesitates, shifts back on her heels. Regina can scarcely bring herself to breathe.

“I-” Emma’s voice cracks, breaks. She swallows. “I caught Henry after school, borrowed his book. I’ve been reading it since then.” A strangled whimper that had likely been meant to form a laugh falls from her lips. “I’m on my third go through, but I stopped.”

Another two steps forward from Emma. Regina fights every single impulse of her body. Every single cell that screams at her to flee. That she is powerless here. That she is nothing. That she has failed, all over again, and this time there’s no coming back.

That she has finally, finally lost everything in a way she has never been able to before, because now she has Henry, and _oh_ , is that boy everything.  

Will he cry when Emma kills her?

Will that be an act that will take any time for him to forgive?

“Regina?”

Emma doesn’t look angry. Her brow is furrowed but her lips are trembling, pulled down at the corners while the beginnings of tears cloud her gaze. She’s sad. Defeated. Exhausted.

Hope surges through Regina. Maybe tonight, she’ll live after all.

“Yes?” A breathless whisper so unbefitting a queen.

“I’m going to say something, and then I’m asking-” Emma cuts herself off, rolls her eyes, lets loose a chuckle that’s all bitterness, “I’m begging you. Please call me a lunatic and throw me out of your house.”

“Say it.”

“I think you’re the Evil Queen and when I was a baby you cursed my parents and their entire kingdom to a life of immortality in Maine.” A beaming, manic grin commandeers Emma’s lips in her pained desperation, pleading for a lie Emma will never believe no matter how hard she tries. “How insane is that?”

“Ludicrous,” Regina murmurs.  

Emma breaks.

Her features twist and her shoulders sag and she snaps out a loud, sharp, “Fuck,” that echoes through the hall.

“Keep your voice down,” Regina hisses, because the only thing that can make any of this worse is a sleepy, bleary-eyed Henry staggering down the stairs.

“Don’t you fucking dare-” Emma jabs an accusing finger in her direction.

“What?”

“ _Anything_.” As soon as it had come, her anger seems to soften.  “Why?” Emma whispers. “Why?”

It’s all Regina can do to keep from rolling her eyes. “You read the book.”

“No.” Emma shakes her head. “No I don’t care about the stupid book.”

“What do you want from me?”

A bark of a laugh. Regina winces at the volume and prays. Prays her little boy remains warm and safe tucked away in his bed.

Prays that when she brings herself to ruin, he won’t fall right down beside her.

“I don’t know.” Emma drags her hands over her face. “I think- I want to go home.”

Home isn’t anywhere though, Regina knows. Not for the likes of Emma Swan.

“Then go.” It’s a long shot.

“Yeah,” she scoffs, “sure.”

“What do you want from me, Emma?” she presses again. Because it’s calmer now, quieter, and on some level she knows Emma. With the adrenaline and dramatics laid to rest she knows not a single bullet in that gun will ever be fired.

That’s not the savior.

That’s not Emma.

And maybe, lately--slowly--on some level Emma knows a bit about her too. More intimately than anyone in town, in fact.

Maybe that counts for something.

“I-” Emma chuckles, pained and low, “I want you to be a stubborn as all hell mother who lashes out at everyone because when her kid found out he was adopted, he came up with this wild story to help him cope with the news. I want it to be a struggle, but then I want it to be okay. I want it all to mellow out and turn out just fine because he gets older and grows out of it and understands more and you and I can just-” She falters, shakes her head, a frown stealing her lips.  

“I guess you can go to your work and I go to mine and we can learn to just stay out of each other’s way until the rare moments when we have to meet in the middle.”

Regina swallows.  

“Can you give me that?” There’s something like hope glimmering deep in Emma’s gaze.

“I could if you let me.”

For a moment, Regina dares to think that might be the end of it. And then Emma sighs, sags, and Regina knows once and for all that she’d never been meant for happiness--even pseudo, half-imaginary, riddled-with-lies sorts of happiness. That just isn’t a card in the hand she’s been dealt.

Never has been.

“I don’t think I’m allowed to,” Emma says.

Silence blankets them and as they study one another Regina fights to keep her mind from wandering. From summoning images of the last time they’d been here, like this, alone and quiet and half in shadows and-

No.

Maybe once she wouldn't have thought twice about trying to manipulate Emma in such a way, but now-

“Can I crash on your couch?” Emma asks, like Regina still has any right to say no.

That says more than Emma herself probably realizes.  

“I’ve been going nuts,” she rambles, hand at the back of her neck, “trying to sort this all out, trying to figure out any other answer, and I think I’ve been making, uh, Mary Margaret uncomfortable.” She winces. “I think we could both do with some space.”

Regina has a guest room. One that’s made up and comfortable and hasn’t been used in twenty-eight years. Still, she brings down some pillows for the couch without so much as mentioning it. They’ll both be more comfortable with Emma downstairs.

Emma wriggles out of her jacket and kicks off her boots. Everything is left a haphazard mess on her floor but Regina doesn’t have the strength to scold her for it. She doesn’t even protest when the gun is left on the coffee table because even if that _cannot_ be proper protocol, at least it’s not being pointed in her direction.

They’ll both be up before Henry anyhow. If they can sleep at all.

“Am I supposed to kill you?” Emma’s slumped on the couch, staring up at her, exhausted, desperate, and Regina can’t stop it.

She remembers.  

Remembers the last time they were like this, drinking, and then somebody had said something right--or maybe something wrong--and then Regina was straddling Emma’s lap and the night had slipped away from them. Time rushing through their fingertips like water running downstream until morning had broken to find them thoroughly entwined upstairs.

“I believe so.” Because what else is she supposed to say?

“If I go to sleep, will you kill me?”

“That’s against the rules.”

Emma chuckles. It’s more genuine now. “Of course it is.” She shifts. Brings up her feet and stretches out along the cushions. “Mary Margaret is my mom.”

It’s a statement. A fact. Not a question.

Still, Regina nods. “Yes.”

“Everything here,” Emma gestures to the room around them and beyond, “all of it--it’s a lie.”

“Yes.”

She thinks on that for a bit, unbelievably passive--or maybe too tired for any sort of emotion. And then she huffs, catches Regina’s gaze.

“Even-?”

Heavy, ragged breaths and frantic fingers and solid, steady rhythm well into the night.

“Maybe not everything,” Regina confesses quietly.

Because she doesn’t know what it was beyond messy and stupid and ill-advised, but she does know for sure it was real. The heat low in her belly and the thundering in her chest and the path of her nails along pale, delicate skin. Real.

All real.

Emma doesn’t react to the information. “Night,” is all she says when the silence gets too thick. And then she rolls over, and she’s asleep.  

 

-

 

Regina spends the night upright in bed, jerking out of light dozes against the headboard every few minutes because she's certain she heard something. The cock of Emma's gun or heavy, angry footsteps marching up the stairs or a ravenous mob gathering outside on the street.

By daybreak she's sick. A pounding headache at the base of her skull and a runny nose, and even though it's hardly gone six she gets out of bed and heads to her bathroom to-

To what?

Get ready for the day?

It's ridiculous.

Laughable.

Still, Regina stares at her dead eyed expression in the mirror, a shower couldn't hurt.

-

It's when she's dried and half-dressed that Regina hears the muffled conversation seeping in from the hall.

Emma.

 _Henry_.

She snags the closest blouse in reach and throws it on before rushing out to find Emma in Henry's open doorway.

"You don't have to go crazy," she says, leaning casually against the frame. "We'll be able to do laundry."

Laundry? Regina's heart seizes in her chest. She rushes forward and catches sight of her-- _her_ \--son inside his room. An open bag on his bed that he's packing neatly folded clothes inside. Within seconds she's turned on Emma, all spitting venom.

“Like _hell_ you’re coming in here and just whisking-”

“You’re coming too," Emma interrupts without so much as flinching.

Oh.

Regina blinks, struggles to find her voice. “N-”

“Yes you are. Pack enough for a week. I don’t know how long we’ll be. Better over prepared than under. One bag though. We don’t have a lot of trunk space.”

And then Emma pushes off the wall and heads downstairs like the conversation is over just because she says so. Regina stares after her, warring with the urge to pick a fight when she knows Henry's just a few feet away. She plucks up the courage to look into his room once more and finds him by his bed, watching her with guarded, wary eyes that splinter her heart.

Has Emma told him what she knows? That he's been right all along? That she's on his side now?

The brave and true mother, come to free him from the prison Regina had apparently caged him in.

She forces a soft smile before any tears can fall or questions can be asked and flees back to the safety and solitude of her room. And there, because what else is she to do, Regina packs.

She doesn't even know where they're going.

 

-

 

The ride is silent.

Hours of silence.

Emma doesn't play any music. Henry doesn't ask. Regina just keeps her eyes firmly on the dashboard.

They don't stop.

Regina's hungry. Henry must have to use the bathroom by now. But nobody says a word.

The ride is silent.

 

-

 

It's actually not that bad. Whenever Regina had pictured it in her mind, she'd envisioned her son finding Emma in some rundown hovel on the side of the road somewhere. A dangerous place surrounded by dive bars and unscrupulous characters with angry scowls and hard glares.

Emma lives in a normal apartment. Maybe even verging on the nice side.

 _Lived_ , Regina bitterly corrects herself. Lived in.

She lives in Storybrooke now, even if it's not totally official. Or legal.

Apparently, Emma's still riding out her lease so when they step in, the place is untouched. The plants are all withered and there are more than a few foul things rotting away in the fridge but it's not totally horrible.

Regina and Henry spend their first night in Boston stiff and quiet on the couch in front of Animal Planet reruns while Emma gives the kitchen a thorough clean out. They order a pizza when she's done and Regina counts this all as a win since Henry hasn't condemned her yet.

She doesn't know what Emma's plan is, or if she even has one, but Regina's not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Not when Henry can still meet her eyes.

 

-

 

When Henry is full of grease and nodding off at the kitchen table, Emma sets him up in her old bedroom before leaving some blankets folded at the bottom of the couch for Regina. She sits herself down at the comfy, well used armchair beside it, feet up on the ottoman, and flips through muted television stations with no direction. Almost as if she's only trying to keep herself awake.

The prison guard, Regina supposes. To make sure she doesn't flee into the city or get any ideas about snatching Henry away.

She snorts. "You know there's nowhere I could go, right?"

Emma doesn't respond, but there's a crinkle between her brow. A confused furrow.

"I'm a woman from a make believe world who is mayor of a town that doesn't exist with money that's not documented by the government. How long do you think I'd last?"

Arms crossed, Emma doesn't so much as spare her a glance. "I've seen people make getaways on less," she grumbles out, surly and bitter.

"Before you drag them back kicking and screaming, you mean." Regina fiddles with the edge of the blanket on her lap. It's frayed in the corner. She rolls the loose ends between her fingers. "I wouldn't leave Henry. Even if-" she swallows, hates herself a little for saying it out loud, especially to _her_ , but it's real, true, and Regina hasn't willingly uttered a truth about herself to another adult in oh, so long now. "Even though he doesn't want me, I'm not going to leave him."

Emma takes so long to say anything else that Regina starts to think she won't.

"What was it like when you got here?" Emma's cheeks are a dusty pink, her mouth twisted. "I mean, everybody else is cursed to think they're supposed to be here, but you-" she falters, sighs. "Never mind, It's stupid, I just-"

"Cars were terrifying."

Emma glances at her, eyes wide in surprise, but there's curiosity there too. Enough to spur Regina on.

"Toilets too," she admits, soft, sheepish. "I knew how to do most things, the curse gave me a license, gave me a job. I knew how to drive, innately, I'd just, never done it before." She hums. "I walked a lot in the early days."

There might be something close to amusement tugging at Emma's lips. "I actually spent my first few years driving without a license. Didn't get one properly until after I got out of-" she trails off, a dark look clouding her features suddenly. "Until I got out of jail. But I guess you probably know all about that, huh?"

Regina raises her eyebrows. "That's what you're sore about?" She chuckles. "I've done far worse, trust me. To your family in particular. Commissioning some slander in a town paper is the least you should hate me for."

"I'm choosing to hate you for the crimes I can actually wrap my head around."

Emma settles them on Animal Planet again. There's a herd of wildebeest on screen. Heads bowed as they graze, peacefully moving through the plains. And then the lionesses strike. Lunge from the tall grass and set about separating the weakest prey from the rest of the herd. The rest scatter as the lions pounce on an unfortunate calf, latching on and dragging it to the ground without a hint of mercy.

"We could have been friends, you know." Emma doesn't take her eyes away from the brutal scene playing out in front of them. "It didn't have to be like this."

"Friends," Regina breathes with a quiet laugh. "Until you broke the curse and had me burned at the stake in the center of town?"

"Is that what you think of me? That I'm capable of that?"

No.

Regina swallows. "I think once your precious family had their memories returned, you wouldn't be able to stop it. And by that point, I think maybe you wouldn't care to try."

"Well," Emma huffs and turns away from her, curls up on her side in the cramped chair, blanket high over her shoulder, "I guess we'll never know now, will we?"

Regina hums. "Trust me, I know."

Emma shoots up, blanket flying. "You're such a-" She cuts herself off with a growl, hands up and fingers curling around empty air in frustration. "You forced this. You left me no choice. I have to have this reaction now, I have to fucking fight you every step of the way. Do you understand that? It didn't have to be a fight."

Emma pushes off the chair, muttering curses as she marches off down the hall. It's a small apartment. There aren't many places to go. Nowhere to hide from Regina. Not really. So she winds up locking herself in the bathroom. And Regina waits, but she must doze off because she doesn't see Emma again until Henry is shaking her awake the next morning.   

 

-

 

They just...exist. Together.

Emma takes them to the harbor and the museum of science and she makes Regina walk a good portion of the Freedom Trail in five inch heels. Which would be its own brand of torture if Henry wasn't enjoying himself so much.

He's absolutely enamored with the city, but takes most enthusiastically to the aquarium.

They spend a good portion of a day there. He runs from exhibit to exhibit, pressing his nose against the glass. Marveling at the translucent forms of jellyfish drifting through their tanks and cooing over tiny seahorses hanging on tightly to blades of seaweed with their curled tails.

Seeing his pure delight, Regina wishes she had known better. Had known his interests. Had known he would come to her. Had better understood this realm and her curse.

She would have created a playground out of her town, tailored to Henry and his every whim. She would have made him a kingdom he would never want to ever leave. She would have made it so he wanted nothing more than to stay by her side forever.

Reality is not quite so kind.

At least there is some good to Emma discovering the truth and spiriting them away. Henry is more her child here, out in the world and away from everything he knows. He needs his mother, her comfort and guidance and reassurance in the face of all these new experiences. Apparently, somewhere deep down in his heart, she's still it because he presses against her side when they sit down in the tight booth at a new restaurant, and he grips her hand when they're on the sidewalk and it gets too crowded.

Every absent touch has Regina's heart beating faster, hungry for more.

Only Emma's incessant staring can bring her down. She watches them constantly, eyes searching. And it leaves Regina hot and itchy and feeling like she's taking some sort of test she doesn't know the guidelines of.  

 

-

 

Four days in and they're all bloated and groggy from surviving on nothing but restaurants and takeout. Regina's not sure exactly how Emma has the money for these relentless excursions--she knows the sheriff's salary, after all. But perhaps living an isolated life with no one to spend money on, to love in that way, to spoil, has left her with a generous savings account.

Regina snaps eventually, insists on cooking dinner. It's a credit to how bad they must feel that Emma and Henry don't resist out of fear of being poisoned. They pick up some groceries on the way back to the apartment and then Regina sets to work. It's the most normal she's felt since Emma knocked on her door that night. Peeling potatoes, cutting up carrots. Easy, comfortable rhythms to fall back into.

Though he doesn't vocalize it, Henry is clearly at least a little suspicious of his mother offering to cook for Emma. She can't blame him, not really, but it still hurts when he keeps watch over her, circling the countertops in the tiny kitchen, hunting for anything that might be amiss.

She ignores it though, just powers through preparation, and slowly his expression shifts. Moves past suspicion and on to curiosity until he's next to her, watching her grate and boil and mix like he sometimes used to a couple of years ago. Back when they were all each other had in the world and there were no walls between their love.   

"Would you like to help?" Regina dares, even knowing she's only setting herself up for heartbreak.

Henry shies away a bit, but Emma comes out of the bathroom then, hands in her pockets on the way back to the living room. She pauses to stick her head into the kitchen, eyes flitting from Henry to the food to Regina.

"Man," she says, a little wistful, "I always wished I knew how to cook like that."

And then suddenly it's okay for Henry to care. He points to the bowl in front of Regina, cheeks a little pink. "Maybe I could do that," he says, and she nods before moving to make room for him.

When she glances back over her shoulder, Emma's gone. Regina refuses to thank her for it.

 

-

 

Henry asks if he can help her make breakfast in the morning and then shows up again when she's getting started on dinner that night. They fall into an easy rhythm with one another as the days pass. Breakfast, sightseeing and lunch and maybe a movie, dinner. Emma always makes herself scare when they're cooking. Sits in the living room with a book or her phone or the T.V on low.

And Henry doesn't talk much beyond looking for instruction at first, but one morning he cracks an egg against the counter for breakfast and says, "Do you think people can get their happy endings back before Emma realizes how to be the savior? Or will the curse make that impossible?"

Regina's sure her heart stops beating.

"Like, Miss Blanchard and Mr. Nolan hang out a lot," Henry continues, then wrinkles his nose, "but Mrs. Nolan is still there. Couldn't we just have her meet Frederick? I've seen him, he teaches gym at school. We could let them be friends and then Miss Blanchard and Mr. Nolan could be together and everything would be back on track. Would the curse be able to stop us?"

Henry looks at her, eyes guarded and this isn't just a question, she realizes. It's a test. One final chance to risk his hatred by owning up to her truth, or to solidify his resentment with another lie.

There doesn't seem to be a way to win in this moment. To make it out with her son's love intact.

Either way he'll be upset with her, there's no getting around that. Not anymore. So, she supposes, only one thing matters here.

Regina.

She has to decide for herself just what sort of mother she wants to be from here on out. In this moment, away from it all, just her and Henry here together. How does she want to move forward?

They finish making their light breakfast. Over easy eggs for Henry, scrambled for Emma, just some coffee and a bit of toast for Regina. It's when she's plating everything up on the counter that Regina says, "I don't believe the curse would alter itself in any way to stop you."

She doesn't look at him when she speaks, keeps her eyes firmly glued to the plates in front of her. "After all, it would seem Rumpelstiltskin all but designed it to be broken."

She can feel the way Henry is starting at her, mouth open a little, eyes wide. Regina just collects her and Emma's plates and carries them out to the table, desperate to get away.

It's the first time she didn't deny the curse or her identity. Henry probably wants some room too.  

 

-

 

It takes a good fifteen or so minutes before Henry joins them at the table. Everything is cold by then, and the atmosphere is tense and awkward as Regina and Henry do everything in their power to avoid one another's gaze.  

Emma must sense the shift between them because she helps Regina clean up and then throws Henry's coat over his shoulders and steers him towards the door. A hasty, "We'll be back in a bit," is all Regina is left with in the end.

It's hell.

Every minute-- _every second_ \--that passes and they don't return drives her closer and closer to insanity. Regina paces the hall. She scrubs down the kitchen. She strips Henry's bed. She starts cooking dinner hours too early.

They're running off to desert her. That's how they would do it, isn't it? Despite everything, Henry doesn't have a lick of malice in his body. He may loathe her, but he would never wish her dead. And Emma may be the heralded savior, but she's certainly no killer.

Their only option would be to ditch Regina in the real world and flee back to Storybrooke. Break the curse and forget Regina ever played a part in their tale at all.

But no, that's not how Emma operates, right? If that was her plan she would have been upfront about it. She would have told Regina what was happening. She would have allowed her a final goodbye with her son.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but Regina latches on to the idea. It pains her, but putting faith in the innate goodness of Snow White's child is the only thing keeping Regina's hands steady as she chops garlic.

 

-

 

It's two hours and forty-seven minutes before the front door opens again.

Emma steps through first and if Regina hadn't made herself so sick over Henry she might have brought herself to be embarrassed by Emma's clear amusement with the inhumanly clean apartment. As it is though, Regina only has eyes for her son.

Henry wanders in, stiff and solemn, head ducked low and coat drawn up around his pudgy cheeks. He heads to the bedroom without a word. And even though a deep gorge runs through the center of Regina's heart at the way he doesn't so much as glance at her, she's still light with the knowledge that they're here.

_They're here they're here they're here_

"You came back," falls out of her, still half the prayer she'd been repeating all the while they were gone.

Confusion flits over Emma for the briefest moment before she softens. There's no smile, Regina hasn't earned that yet, but there's understanding. Maybe a touch of guilt.

Clearing her throat, Emma lifts her hand a little. There are a couple of shopping bags twisted around her fingers that Regina hadn't noticed when they'd come in. "We're doing sundaes and pj's in front of the T.V after dinner." She raises her eyebrows in challenge. "No arguments."

Heart pounding, Regina doesn't even bring herself to try.   

 

-

 

The deep bowl balanced on Emma's palm is full of Chocolate Brownie Batter Blast ice cream, or some other such nonsense. It has both chocolate and caramel sauce, a heaping mound of whipped cream piled on top, and chopped up peanut butter cups shoved into every available space.

Regina has a single scoop of vanilla in her bowl, just a dab of Nutella on the side.

Emma seems certain she did it out of spite.

The air in the living room isn't as tense as she may have feared. Emma is cross-legged in her armchair, contentedly lapping at her spoon. Regina is on the couch, leaning against the arm, legs tucked up under herself. And Henry is at the other end, ignoring the dolphins on screen to stare down at the bowl in his lap. The ignored Neapolitan ice cream becoming a sludgy mess of blended color.  

It's not until Emma heads to the kitchen with her and Regina's empty bowls that Henry speaks.

"Rumpelstiltskin made the curse."

That's enough to make Regina wish she hadn't had any ice cream. Her stomach churns, only the tightness of her chest keeping down the bile that threatens to rise.

A deep breath, Regina wills herself to be strong. She chose to start this this morning, and even if Henry still won't look at her, she can't take it back now. The only way is forward.

"Well, I cast it," she says as evenly as she can manage, "but yes. He is the one who gave it to me."

"Oh." Henry stirs up what's left of his ice cream, his tiny feet kicking out over the carpet.

"He's the one who taught me about all magic," she offers, desperate to keep the conversation flowing even if it hurts her in the end. Just to hear his voice directed at her. 

"Yeah," Henry grumbles, "I know that. To hurt Snow White."

Regina's tongue sits heavy in her mouth. Feels too big. Too unwieldy. She swallows, voice only trembling the barest bit. "Eventually yes," she forces out, "but at first I learned to get away from my mother."

Feet stop kicking. Spoon stops stirring. Ever so slightly, Henry's gaze flickers to eye her with interest. "Your mom?"

"Yes."

A heavy silence falls over them. The armchair creeks a little and Regina startles a bit when she finds Emma settled in it comfortably, eyes on the T.V. She hadn't even registered her return, as absorbed as she was in her son.

"The book doesn't say anything about her," Henry says, capturing her attention once more.

The prompting in his voice is clear, but Regina doesn't want to sound like she's making excuses. Not in front of Emma. Especially not in front of Henry. So she just clears her throat and says, "Oh."

Henry's features twist up in the impatience he's learned from her. It’s almost enough to make her smile.

"Why did you want to get away from her?"

Regina takes long enough to answer that Emma stands and stretches and says, "Why don't I go for a walk?"

"No," Regina says without tearing her eyes away from Henry. "You can stay."

Emma hesitates, caught halfway to slumping back in her seat. "You sure?"

She isn't, but Regina nods anyways. Emma can do as she pleases. Tonight--this moment--is about Henry. Only Henry.

"Where would you like me to start?" she asks him.

His mouth twists and he shrugs a little. "Just, like, at the beginning, I guess."

She sighs. "It's hard really, to know where the beginning is," Regina takes a shaky breath, "but I'll try."

And so she tells Henry about a boy named Daniel.

 

-

 

Regina's eyes are burning, and her throat feels raw and achy from being denied the right to waver when all she wants is to fall apart. Henry is sitting next to her though, and she's determined to give him a calm, coherent truth. One that's as age appropriate as she can mold it to be where she's not a sobbing, quivering mess on the couch.

He's quiet when she runs out of things to say. Regina had been waiting for anger. Accusations and crowing 'I-told-you-so's and righteousness burning bright in his eyes. But he's pensive. Thoughtful. Turned in on himself as he glares down at the floor, toes digging into the carpet.

It's Emma who clears her throat and breaks the silence. "It's late, kid. Why don't we head to bed and then we can talk some more in the morning, okay?"

His nod is jerky, stiff, and after he stands Henry looks at them both, hesitating before heading down the hall without saying goodnight to either of them.

That leaves Regina and Emma alone for the night and they sit for awhile in front of a muted television without a word. Dolphins turns into a show about building tree houses turns into some reality program about a dog rescue down south.

It's only when Regina is about to get up and go brush her teeth that Emma speaks to her. Says, "Do you ever think about that night?" like it won't send Regina spiraling into inner turmoil.

Emma snorts, rolls her eyes at herself. "Not now, I guess," she offers a half shrug, "but before. Those few days when there wasn't anything else going on and it was just you and me with all of that background noise." Head tilt, brow furrowed, she takes in Regina with sharp eyes. "Were you ever thinking about it?"

For a moment, Regina flounders. Studies Emma desperately, praying there will be some sort of sign or hint about what she's supposed to say. About what Emma--Emma who holds Regina's fate, her very life, in the palm of her hands--wants to hear.

The truth, Regina has to take a breath and remind herself.

All she wants--all either of them have ever wanted--is the truth.  

"Yes."

For a few brief seconds, Emma seems to weigh the word in her mind. Testing it. Tasting it. Then she sags further into her chair and says, "I couldn't stop." Her gaze is distant. She's looking past Regina now, through her. "For a while there I wondered-" she breaks, laughs a little. "I mean, nothing on the level of what was really going on, but I thought maybe you were messing with me, you know? Playing with my head. Trying to, I don't know, throw me off or distract me or break my heart or shut me up."

Regina isn't sure if she's allowed to make jokes anymore but says, "It was a little that last one," anyways.

And it feels like a victory when Emma shakes her head with a quiet laugh. This one genuine at last.  

The mirth fades quickly though. Emma's eyes are dim and her shoulders low. "But then I let myself think, maybe-" she shakes her head. "And it just seemed so crazy. You're-" she gestures to Regina, "and I'm-" to herself.

She sits up fully then, scoots to the edge of the cushion and leans towards Regina so they're facing one another on even ground. There's something soft in the way she looks at her that Regina is sure she doesn't have any right to. Something reminiscent of that first night when Emma had been dazed and overwhelmed and maybe a little awestruck.

Something Regina thought she'd broken along the way.  

"I was just like, wow, okay. Maybe I'm-" Emma's voice breaks a little. There are no tears in her eyes, but the waver in her voice hits Regina just as hard. "Maybe there might be something to me if-" She doesn't finish the thought. Instead scoffs a little and drags a hand over her face. "I'm just overtired. I-"

"I'm sorry," Regina cuts her off.

It just falls out of her. The two words tumbling free before she can safely swallow them back. And she quite honestly doesn't remember the last time she's said those words and meant them. When they haven't been dripping with irony, with condescension.

Daddy?

The weight of Emma's sorrow, of her frustration, of her exhaustion. It's all so real. So tangible. "Sometimes I think you might be." She reaches out, tentative, only seeming to find the courage to trail her fingers against Regina's cheek when she doesn't flinch away. "I want you to be."

Regina swallows thickly. "I am."

Shaking her head, Emma makes to pull back, but Regina reaches up to grip her, refuses to let the connection fade so easily.

"Maybe not for the rest of them," Regina allows, "but for Henry." She inches forward. "For you. For the people that matter."

Emma's smile is pained. "I think that's the point. I think they're all supposed to matter."

"I could try to get there," Regina says, even as she loathes the desperation slipping through the cracks. "I could if I- I just need a chance."

A thumb strokes along the curve of her cheek. "It sounds like you've had a lot of chances."

Regina leans forward until their foreheads touch, pleading with Emma to understand. To take the chance and see her like nobody else has managed. "Not any with you."

"Fuck." The word slips out of Emma like a sigh and then they're kissing.

It's nothing like the slow uncertainty they shared before. None of the tentative touches or hesitation to trust. They're not each waiting for other other to pull back at any moment and laugh about how it was all just part of their game.

Instead it's urgent. Desperate, even. All of Emma's anxieties pouring through as she draws Regina close. Tugs her onto the chair until she's left straddling Emma again. They're pressed as close as can be and Regina forgets herself as she clings to her, refusing to let this sudden change slip away as quickly as it has come over Emma.

This isn't Maleficent comparing Regina's anguish to the love of a pet, this isn't Daddy offering far too little years upon years too late, this isn't precious Snow White pitying her after having Regina strung up for treason before the court.

This is a lifeline--a final lifeline--that Regina won't turn away from. This will be the first time in her life she's strong enough to seize it. Because of Henry and everything he has been. Because of Emma and all she might be.  

There are lights now that she’s been blind to in the past. Paths she never imagined. Hope she hasn't felt for so many years.

Regina dares to move against Emma, hips rolling into her lap, movements more pronounced when she finds no resistance. Instead, Emma's helping her along, fingers first at her hips guiding her, and then trailing up to Regina's shirt. Playing with the hem until Regina gets the hint to pull back a bit and let Emma tug it off.

She closes the distance between them again as soon as it’s gone. Doesn't want to leave any room for doubt to sink in. For Emma's head to clear enough that she can remember what a bad idea this is. Can remember she hates Regina and all she's done and all she's chosen to be in her life.

But Emma is better than that. Sharper. Even as she kisses Regina. Even as her lips move from Regina's mouth to her jaw to her neck. She's still there. Still fully present.

"Why couldn't you just trust me?" she whispers into the slope of Regina's shoulder.

And it all goes still as Regina at last registers the tears on her skin.

Emma’s tears.

"I couldn't," Regina breaths, aching at the way Emma's arms tremble around her.

"You could have." It's close to a whine. "You should have."

Regina tries to pull away but Emma won't let her go. She grips tight to Regina's waist, face burrowed in the crook of her neck, breathing her in. And Regina is left to awkwardly perch on her lap, half undressed, fingers tentatively combing through Emma's long hair.

"Now I _have_ to be mad," Emma mumbles against her. "I have to hate you. I have to look at you like someone who would have just kept going if they didn't get caught." A watery sob of a breath. "Because there's no way for me to know. I have no way of knowing that you wouldn't have gone on forever if you could have gotten away with it."

It's a horrible risk, but when it comes to Emma the truth has gotten her this far.

"I would have," Regina admits. Eyes squeezed shut, she holds tight to Emma's shoulders in case she lets go. "I know I would have. Because I wanted- I want-"

"Don't do that."

"It's true," Regina swears. "I think it must be true. This- This here in Boston with the two of you away from all of them-" She sags fully against Emma, trusting her with all her weight. "It's the closest I've been in twenty-eight years to breaking free of that curse."

"God, I can't-" Emma's voice breaks. She finally lifts her head and though Regina misses the warmth of her words against her skin, she's grateful Emma can still bring herself to look at her. "Do you know how fucked up it is to be like this with you and hear you say shit like that? Curses and witches and queens." Emma shakes her head. "It was bad enough when you were just wildly unlikable as a human being." Her laugh is breathy, but at least it's real. "I don't think I'm ready to unpack all the other stuff yet."

Regina touches her. The furrow of her brow. The slope of her nose. The ridge of her cheek. The soft line of her lips.

"Then don't," she all but pleads. "Not tonight."

They have to be quick, quiet, and they can't fully undress in case Henry wanders out of the bedroom. But Emma slips a hand past the waistband of Regina's underwear and guides Regina into rocking against her until she's gasping into her mouth.

There's no slow exploration like the first time, but even as it's worse it's better too. Trust building and flowing and living between them as it never has been allowed to before.

Last time was about a lie. This time is about the truth.

This time it's real for them both. And it's more than being a power hungry mayor with a chip on her shoulder that Emma happens to be attracted to when she riles her up.  

Much more.

 

-

 

Due to their current living arrangements, Regina spends the night alone on the couch, Emma curled up in the armchair a foot away. And when she wakes up in the morning only Henry is in the apartment with her.

"She said we needed more orange juice," he explains as he pours himself a glass from a carton that's still three-quarters full. It's not the most encouraging news, but Regina has been trusted on her own with Henry, and for now that will have to be enough.

They sit and have breakfast together and Henry is nibbling thoughtfully on a slice of bacon when he says, "How exactly is Emma supposed to break the curse?"

Regina frowns. She has her suspicions, of course, but even as determined as she now is to share the truth with Henry she doesn't quite feel up to telling him she thinks perhaps she's meant to die. That the end of her life will mean the end of her magic.

"I'm not quite sure," she settles on after a moment, which isn't a total falsehood. That will have to do for now.

"Huh." Henry purses his lips. "Well, I guess that's Emma's job to figure out."

"I guess," Regina agrees.

They study one another from across the small table.

"If we helped," Henry says slowly, suspicion still lingering in his gaze, "we might make it go faster."

Swallowing, Regina flashes him a tentative smile. "Maybe we could." Her heart feels as though it's attempting to burst free of her chest with the sheer force of its pounding.

"We could help Red."

"Yes."

"And Princes Abigail."

"Mmm."

"And even Snow White."

The final test.

She can say whatever she likes now, pacify him with pretty words, but when they return to Storybrooke Regina is going to have to prove herself to Henry truly and fully. To work towards the princess' happiness if she's ever going to earn her son's forgiveness.

Yet again it seems the entirety of Regina's world rests in Snow White’s hands.

A deep breath. In and out and in again. Regina keeps her eyes fixed on Henry while she speaks, if only to remind herself with every word why it will all be worth it in the end, "Even Snow White."

There's hesitation in his smile, reservation, but it's more than she's gotten in so long now and Regina soaks it in. Commits the sight to memory before she loses it all over again.

"Cool," Henry says.

And despite it all, Regina laughs.

"Cool."

 

-

 

Emma returns to take them out to lunch. She's fidgety at the restaurant, distracted, and apparently determined to avoid Regina's gaze. It's not unexpected, but that doesn't make it pleasant. Still, so long as she's not banished from Henry's life, Regina will shoulder her disappointments with dignity.

Henry is what matters most.

_Henry. Henry. Henry. Henry._

Until he's gone to bed and the lights are out and Emma slips off the chair to sit on the floor beside the couch. That's when Regina lays there watching her through the dark thinking, maybe Emma too. Because even after all that darkness, the light of the foolish dreamer she'd once been still hasn't been completely snuffed out. Apparently.

Or maybe she's just never been smart.

"I tried to make it real today," Emma whispers in the night, her expression shrouded in shadow. She's faced away from Regina, her back against the couch, and her words are tight. "I tried to get it beyond a fairy tale. If this was more than a story and we-" Emma sighs heavily, head shaking. "If you lived in this world and you took a gun and you shot somebody with it, just one innocent, how could I ever live with that?"

Regina doesn't know. All she does know is that she's aching with even the possibility that Emma might be able to. Which is unfair, monstrous, and everything she's craving.

"Maybe you've changed," Emma says, "but so what? Crushing a heart is so impossible, so fantastic, I- I can't wrap my head around it. That doesn't seem real to me. But if you told me you shot somebody, then I'd want you to go to jail and be locked up and stay far- far away from me." A frustrated sound. Low, almost like a growl. "But you _didn't_ shoot anybody."

"You ripped out hearts and ordered soldiers to torment villages and how the _fuck_ am I supposed to understand that? How am I supposed to qualify that in my brain? Because I met a snobby mayor on a power trip and I don't know anything about castles or magic or the world you come from. There's you, right here right now next to me. And then there's this disgusting character in this shitty book. And that's you too."    

"I didn't know about Henry." Regina hates how unsteady her voice sounds. "I didn't know about you."

She knows how awful it sounds. That she would have been a better person if she knew she was going to get what she wanted down the road. A teenager with far too much power throwing a temper tantrum.

In the end--as justified as her rage and hurt had been--that's all the Evil Queen ever amounted to.

And now-

A cold laugh slips out of Emma. She sniffs, rubs at her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. "I'm scared I'm not a good enough person to know what the right thing to do is."

Regina swallows, whispers, "What do you want the right thing to be?"

Emma doesn't answer that. Instead she says, "They always preach forgiveness. That's what they say good people do. They forgive." The shadow that is Emma turns its head, and even though Regina can't make out her expression, she can hear Emma's watery eyes and trembling lips in her voice. "But I think in this case my forgiveness is selfish. It gives me what I want. I'm supposed to-" A strained scoff. "There are people depending on me. I'm supposed to save them. To bring them justice. And now I understand what their kind of justice entails."

A phantom rope burns into the skin of Regina's wrists. She remembers the jeering faces of the crowd. The way the wooden stake dug into her spine. The burn of her shoulders when her arms were wrenched behind her. The glare of the sun beating down on her. The glint of the arrowhead as the executioner lined up their shot.

"But I'll, what," Emma presses, "deny it to them and hide behind nobility?"

Regina's heart stutters in her chest. "You'd want me to die if we hadn't-?" Not Emma. Never Emma.

"Of course not." Emma sounds offended by the idea. "I don't even believe in the death penalty in this realm."

Of course.

It's Emma.

That's Emma.

"Then there's your answer," Regina braves.

Another sigh. Emma shifts, pushes up to her knees and reaches for Regina. "You can't get out of this," she says, grasping Regina's hands tightly in her own. "You can't just walk free."

"No," Regina agrees.

"No," Emma mimics. She takes a breath, straightens a bit. "But I promise at the very least, I won't let them hurt you. Maybe you'll be locked up but- I think I want to try."

Emma leans forward and kisses her, and Regina does her best in those few short seconds of contact to prove she won't regret the decision. That she can somehow be worth this great risk even if Regina can’t quite believe it herself.

When she pulls away, Emma nods to herself. Resolute. Confident in her way forward at last after all these long days of uncertainty.

"I won't let them hurt you," she says again, and this time it's a vow. Solemn and serious and binding.  

"That's enough," Regina promises. "I'll handle whatever else comes."  

Though it's less than comfortable, they toss the cushions off the back of the couch and lay together side by side, lack of space forcing them as close as can be. And it's intimate in a way that goes beyond sexuality. In a way that Regina's never experienced in her adult life.

"I'll have good days and bad days," Emma warns her when they're both on the cusp of sleep. "Sometimes really bad days."

Regina hums. "Trust me, I will too."

They laugh, and even cramped as she is sandwiched between Emma and the hard back of the couch, Regina sleeps better than she has since they left town.

 

-

 

"We're going home tomorrow," Emma announces at breakfast. "So if there's anything you want to do or see before we go now is the time."

Henry pouts a bit at the idea of leaving the city he's still in the midst of exploring--even more so when Regina and Emma team up to remind him he's missed way too much school already. To pacify him, Henry is in charge of the days activities, and Regina supposes she shouldn't be surprised when they end up at the public library of all places.

The only one he's ever been to is the tiny room in Storybrooke elementary. Understocked and underfunded. Deprived because of the machinations of his own mother. A petty attempt at control. Withholding information and gateways of imagination from the people to keep them trapped in mind numbing routine day after day after year after year.

A dictator.

She'll reopen their own public library, Regina decides as she watches her son roam the shelves with wonder in his gaze. She'll have it filled with every genre of text. A haven for Henry and his limitless imagination. Something lasting she can give him should the curse shatter and it all goes horribly wrong.

They stand back as they watch him wander, Henry at the age now where he relishes every hint of independence he's offered. Emma stays by her side, loose grip on Regina's hand as she trails her through the long rows of fiction. It's casual. Absent, like years of bloody history don't linger between them.

"A piece of me wants to stay here," Emma admits as she watches Regina run her fingers over cracked, old book bindings. “It would be so much easier like this. We wouldn't have to even think about-" She sighs. "I know I shouldn't want to pretend. For this to be real, every piece of it needs to be. I can't just pick and choose the parts I want."

There are people milling about around them, so Regina turns to Emma, keeps her voice low. "No matter what happens," she promises, "I won't let Henry down again." She squeezes Emma's hand lightly, hoping she understands.

Emma smiles like she does. "I know you won't."

And later, when Henry makes a bathroom run, Emma tugs Regina close and kisses her. It's quick. Soft. Painfully appropriate for being out and about in the world.

"Once we get back," Emma explains at her confusion, "it probably won't be a good idea for me to do that in public anymore."

Regina laughs at the blatant understatement. "Probably not."   

 

-

 

The ride is loud.

Despite his earlier misgivings, Henry seems eager to return to Storybrooke now that they're on their way. Though it would appear his motivations lie more in getting started on breaking the curse than catching up with his school work. He sits in the backseat with the book open on his lap and flips through the pages, confirming identities with his mother and plotting out schemes on how best to return all of the lost happy endings.

Regina does her best to breathe evenly. To force a smile and answer his questions without breaking, and not wrench the door open in the middle of the highway to throw up on the side of the road.

Emma must sense the danger because she heads for the closest exit ramp and takes them to an early lunch at a dingy diner. She tracks Regina down in a bathroom stall while Henry's back at the booth working on a chicken sandwich, finds her crouched over a dirty toilet caught in an endless loop of short shallow gasps.

"You're all right," Emma soothes, rubbing her back through the dry heaving. "Everything is going to be okay."

A sob catches in Regina's throat as she shakes her head. "It's still just a story. He still looks at it like a fairy tale. A riddle he solved and now a game he gets to play to match everybody up and-" Her voice breaks.

And when the curse breaks and it all becomes real-- _really_ real--everything will change. There's no returning happy endings. Broken families may reunite, sure, but parents won't return from the dead, people won't be sent back to their true homes, years of abuse and torment won't be erased.

"It's going to be real," Regina gasps, folding in on herself, "and he's going to hate me. Really hate me."

Though Emma's hand never stops moving, she's quiet for a long time.

"He's ten," Emma says at last, "so he's probably going to say that, yeah. Maybe a lot."

It stings, but it's no less than Regina deserves. She's knows it and still-

"But you're not going anywhere," Emma continues. "You're always going to be there, and he's going to get older. He'll learn and be able to work on deciding things for himself. I know him, and I know you, and I know everything bad that's coming won't be the end. I know you'll help each other work past it together."

 

-

 

It isn't any easier being trapped in the car again, listening to Henry go on and on about how to get princess Abigail to meet Frederick and how best to get Jiminy Cricket to hang out with Geppetto. But at least this time Emma reaches out a hand as she drives and lets Regina cling to it tightly in her lap.   

 

-

 

Henry exhausts himself at last, the gentle sway of the car lolling him to sleep, and he's still passed out in the back when they arrive at the edge of Storybrooke. Emma pulls the car to a stop just before they cross the town line.

"I won't chase you," she says, eyes fixed straight ahead, glued to the road stretched out before them. "You can get out now, if you want." A soft snort. "I don't think I'd even blame you."

One last chance to be bad. Regina almost laughs at the thought. One last temptation.

Her gaze flicks up to the rear view mirror. Henry's slumped in his seat. Head against the window, heavy breath fogging the glass.

"Everything I have lef-" No. "Everything I care about, it's all here. It's all I want." She takes a steadying breath. "Even if it kills me."

When Regina chances a peek, she finds the brightest smile Emma's worn since the reveal. Small, but real, and with genuine amusement seeping through, eyes shining in her mirth.

Emma rolls her eyes and eases her foot off the brake. "Don't be so melodramatic."

They cross over the line together. All of them.

"I think when he's able to really understand it," Emma murmurs as they drive slowly through the center of a town filled with cursed fairy tale characters, "taking everything else out of the equation, he's going to be proud, you know? To be someone you love."  

Regina balls her hands up into tight fists and aims to take deep, calming breaths as she watches her imaginary world pass by the window.

"I hope so."

 

 


End file.
